Monmouth racetrack plans to be the first to offer sports betting in N.J.

TRENTON — Abandoning the enforcement of New Jersey's sports betting ban was supposed to be Gov. Chris Christie's tonic for the state's ailing Atlantic City casinos, but it seems that for the near future, only the money hemorrhaging horse racing venue Monmouth Park will be making hay out of it.

Just 24 hours after Christie's administration announced it would not prosecute sports bookmaking, Monmouth Park today said it will offer wagering on professional athletics by the end of the month. .

Terming the Christie administration’s move “huge” and “the saving grace” to the horseracing industry, Monmouth Park adviser Dennis Drazin said Monmouth was forecasting $1 billion worth of sports bets and a $75 million commission to be split between Monmouth Park and its UK-based partner, the sports-betting firm William Hill, just in the first year of operations.

“And if nobody else does it, we’ll see an increase in that revenue,” Drazin said.

“We’re the only gaming institution that doesn’t have licenses in other states,” said Drazin, noting that parent companies like Caesar’s Entertainment — which besides its namesake chain of casinos also owns Bally’s and Harrah’s — have licenses in so many states they could be threatened if they violated federal sports betting rules.

Immediately after the Christie administration’s announcement of its intention to allow sports bookmaking yesterday, legal experts predicted that that parent companies of New Jersey’s casinos and horseracing operations would be extremely reluctant to dip a toe into sports betting for fear of being prosecuted by existing federal anti-gambling laws, and it appears they were correct.

Jeff Gural, who owns the New Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford adjacent to MetLife Stadium, where the NFL’s Giants and Jets play, said he had no plans to get into sports betting anytime soon.

"I’m not going to do anything until the courts rule,” Gural said. “And I don’t intend to be the guinea pig who is going to force that rule. I’m just watching and waiting.”

Not that Gural doesn’t think it would be great for his business. "I have a spectacular sport bar here,” he said of Meadowlands Racetrack. “But I’m not looking to go to war with the sports teams — I have a very good relationship with them. There’s nothing to do but let it play out."

In an email, Eric Schippers, Sr. Vice President, Public Affairs & Government Relations at Penn National Gaming wrote that while Penn is not the managing partner of the Freehold Raceway and couldn’t speak for its partner Greenwood Racing, “we wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardize our gaming licenses in other states given the legal uncertainties around this.”

The uncertainties stem from the fact that New Jersey still has anti-sports betting laws on the books. Unless they are repealed, federal prosecutors could go after sports betting operators.

“We would feel more comfortable taking bets if the governor had passed the [original sports betting] bill and the ban was repealed,” Drazin said.

State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) tonight said he and and state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R– Monmouth) would together introduce new legislation in late September that would do just that.

The boon that sports betting will be to Monmouth Park cannot be overstated: Drazin said the racetrack currently operates just 71 days out of the year, and loses $4.5 million annually – though significantly less than the $12 million a year it was hemmoraghing when the state of New Jersey ran the track.

“You can’t keep losing money,” he said, “At some point you have to break even.”

But with sports betting, he said, Monmouth will do more than that: Even after operating expenses and splitting its take with William Hill Monmouth Park is expected “to be up by $20 million instead of down by $ 4 million.”

More, it would finally have options — to double its racing season to 140 days and offer half million dollar purses, or to double its million dollar purses and offer ever bigger and more exciting stakes and races.

“It would be a nice problem to have,” Drazin said.

In the interim, it remains to be seen if professional sports leagues will play ball, or sue to block the move as they have done previously.

Spokespeople for the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball all declined comment, and a request for comment from the NCAA was not responded to at deadline.